Chapter 21
Sophia wandered through Alexandria aimlessly, already she had found Rosita reluctantly starting to work with the people on a patch of land near the triplex. It surprised Sophia how seemingly easy it had been for her to obey her commands and wondered if it had to do with Rick and Michonne not being present or if it had to do with something else.
It could also have been the fact that she had come alone and offered them the means to produce food in a time of crisis since apparently their food stocks were running low. It was a big favor she was making for them and it wouldn't be just the seeds, she was about to brew a fertilizer potion to give them a good start.
Anything to get them to stop scavenging. She thought. It bothered her very much that there were several people from Alexandria that were roaming outside without any kind of supervision. The situation reminded her of the map her old master had placed in his home, it was charmed to show everyone's position within
a wide area around his place and it even showed different wards and spell effects on the area, such a thing would be so useful to her.
After moving around the place and trying to discern who she recognized from the present Alexandrians but she couldn't find anyone interesting except for the lady that was once close to dying for Spencer's negligence. The big woman limited herself to staring at her from behind one of the windows from the storage house.
"Howdy neighbor!" She greeted with her shiny arm in the air as she passed by, chuckling a little when the woman hurriedly closed the curtains.
Spencer's house, the Moroes house as it stated in a sign near the front door, was the better located one of the complexes. It was closer to the center of the community and she could already tell from looking at it, that its windows and roof balcony would allow one to see most of the homes in Alexandria as well as three of the main gates of the community. The east gate was the one Negan and her Saviors had been using to visit them, but Alexandria had four gates for entry, which was great in case of an emergency exit.
The house was pristine clean and beautifully adorned, a big library and sofa chairs near a fireplace. There were enough windows in every wall to easily illuminate the interior with daylight. The kitchen, which had a big wooden island with benches, similar to the one she remembered Aaron's home had, was well equipped, with working water and electric appliances.
Sophia walked around the place on her own, its shelves and stands still held pictures and memorabilia from the Monroe family, so she vanished most of it before she sat down to nibble on the salad Amber had made sure she'd take before she left the Sanctuary.
She would be preparing a dragon dung fertilizer, a potion that was best used under the light of the full moon, luckily they were a couple of days from it so they wouldn't have to wait too much. She was already setting up her tools and ingredients in the kitchen when Carl came over looking like he was unsure if he was doing something he shouldn't be doing.
Sophia had seen Carl a few times by then and she was now realizing that her old friend was partial to those slightly oversized flannel shirts, which he generally did not button up, it wasn't a bad look but it gave him an air of awkwardness somehow. He had his hair at shoulder length and it looked like he took better care of it than she did her own.
Either that or he has great hair. She thought as she placed the sloth brain over a cloth to extract the mucus.
He had ditched the bandage for the eye since she had healed it and now wore a nice leather eye patch that looked to be handmade, it wasn't a bad look, if only he stopped using his dad's hat once in a while.
"You know, between my hat and yours it might get tight in here." She joked while she worked on squeezing the mucus out of the cloth-covered sloth brain and into a mortar.
Carl, who had chosen to lean against the kitchen's door frame, was looking at her half impressed and half disgusted at what she was doing. He did take off his hat though, and after some doubt, sat on one of the opposite stools by the island where she was working.
"What are you doing?" He asked her slightly concerned.
On the kitchen island, she had set up a big copper cauldron levitating over a flame, along with some other jars and small bags with the ingredients she needed. The cauldron was emitting a curious noise, it sounded like ice shattering and water boiling at the same time because it was exactly what she had charmed it to.
"A fertilizer based on dragon poop." She informed the boy as she opened one of the bigger jars she had and grabbed a handful of dragon dung and dropped it on the mortar with the mucus she had just extracted.
"What, you go around collecting dragon shit now?" He joked with her. It was a bit odd that he didn't react to her alluding to the existence of dragons.
"Of course not, there are no dragons in the U.S." She answered as if it was a commonly known fact, well, technically it was. "Which is why this is valuable shit, literally."
"You are not joking, are you?" He asked her with a resigned tone. "I…" He started.
He shifted a little and looked around, seemingly checking if anyone was listening. "Enid and I, we were outside the walls, we liked to go outside and spend some time between the trees."
Sophia smiled behind her mask as she tended to her potion, when hearing of her friend's escapades with his girlfriend, she vanished the flame and started stirring the triple point water with the tip of her wand exactly as the instructions said.
"The last time we were there, we saw something, like a monster. It looked evil, there were two and they started eating a walker." He told her with concern. "It didn't seem to be hostile in the end, but I'd never seen anything like it." He said.
Sophia listened and absentmindedly wondered what they had come across while she dropped the liquid rat spleen on the iced surface of the water, which made a muffled crashing noise and then added the mix of dragon dung and mucus she had mixed with a pestle. Finally, she stopped after a single half stir counterclockwise.
"What did it look like?" She asked him as she placed a new flame under the floating cauldron and left it simmering.
Carl had been intrigued by the cauldron's reactions and it took him a second to respond.
"Like a black-winged dead horse, there was a big one and a small one." He explained, and Sophia identified immediately what he was talking about.
"That's a breed of winged horse called Thestral. Apparently they were super rare before the dead started walking, but since they eat carrion and there's no wizarding society to keep their population regulated, they seem to be growing a lot." She informed him as she checked the color of the brew, it needed to reach a soft lilac.
"I used to feed a small family of those in Georgia, they lived near my old master's house. Not a beast to worry much about, they are generally docile as you saw."
"Thestral…" Repeated Carl under breath, thoughtfully. "So what else is out there that is not being regulated now?" He asked her wisely. Sophia nodded in approval at his concern, it was certainly something she worried about sometimes.
She emptied the contents of one of the bags on a cutting board, a stewed mandrake and started carefully slicing it.
"Not as much as in other places of the world, luckily. Mostly stuff that would be considered pests, others used to be more confined to other states. My concern is how it will all develop in the future, I mean, look at the Thestrals. They are clearly covering more territory as time goes by, there is a midsized herd of them living a little north of here that I've visited before. " She told him, and that wasn't even the worst, there were truly dark beings out there which she had no idea if she could handle.
It seemed that the prospect of a very different future world had left Carl lost in thought, they spent the next few minutes in silence while he watched her work.
She grabbed the mortar and pestle and cleaned it with her wand, then proceeded to crush with it a few dragonfly thoraxes into a fine powder. It was done just in time for the cauldron to start blowing a lilac colored smoke and she added it after checking the state of the brew, immediately followed by the sliced mandrake.
At this point, the smoke receded a little bit and she engorged the flame to elevate the temperature, and gave it another stir, this time clockwise.
"You are really good at this." Commented Carl.
"Thanks, it's not a high-level potion and I've done it before. Once it's done I'll leave it here, remember it needs to be spread on the soil under the light of the full moon." She instructed the boy.
"Won't you do it?" He asked her innocently.
"I won't." She curtly answered, her curse not being something she told anyone but her most trusted people.
The next step was to let the potion on strong heat for a while, so she sat in one of the benches and started carefully chopping the last part.
"Did you ever find your mom?" Asked her Carl as he watched her work.
The question bounced inside Sophia's mind for a few seconds, something was off about it. Something was wrong about it, like she was missing something. But she decided to put it in the back of her mind for later.
"Yeah, she found me actually." She said a little guarded.
"That's cool, I guess. Did it go well?" He continued.
"Hmmm...yes, considering...I knew we were going to clash about some stuff, but it was nice, I've been really happy since. I'll go see her after I finish with this in fact."
"I guess she doesn't agree with the whole Negan business and all?" Asked Carl, it was something that he had mentioned before.
"Among other stuff…" She answered a bit miffed, the sound of the knife softly hitting the wooden board as she chopped the flying seahorse. "Negan and I…" She tried to explain.
"It's not like he's my boss or anything like he is towards the Saviors… the truth is we are more akin to, like-minded partners. And I think she had this idea that I was confused or being manipulated or something." She mused, thinking about her mother's reaction to her explanations.
"And you are not?" He continued, quite cheekily, since Sophia knew he didn't believe she was.
"Of course not." She answered at once. "I told you, Negan and I share a vision. We both work on the same goal, I might seem like one of his lieutenants, but I'm more independent than that. The people look at me differently, I have a different relationship with them." She said with conviction, especially the part about the people, that was one of the most important aspects that differentiated her with the lieutenants.
She was a presence to them, a figure that was a boon to the morale, a witch on their side who could make miracles happen. Watching their backs, looking out for them, living among them.
She sighed, trying to let out the bitter feeling. "I'm sorry for mom, but I can't be the girl that I used to be."
By this point the potion had stopped boiling and it had started making a sloppy sound, like big air bubbles on mud, it had also taken a mossy green color and thickened a lot.
She vanished the flame and left the cauldron to cool off by itself, only then she could add the flying seahorse.
"You are done?" Asked her Carl with interest, taking a peek at the contents of the cauldron. It was like a mossy patch of moist earth with a heavy smell of a very pungent manure. "Ufff." He managed and covered his nose.
"Hahaha! Dude, dragons eat meat, it's not like cow pies. This shit is strong." She said laughing. "The cauldron is enchanted so that the smell won't bother you unless you do exactly what you did."
Despite the shock to his senses, Carl managed to laugh along with Sophia and she couldn't have enjoyed the moment more. Yes, things were different but there they were, hanging out and laughing in the comfort of a kitchen belonging to a beautiful and safe walled community, no undead or dangers to worry about.
"I…" Suddenly Carl started, his mood more serious, he looked like he wanted to say something but was having trouble putting it into words. "About that time, when we argued on the road to the Hilltop… You were right." He said slowly, thinking well what he wanted to say.
Sophia had to stop and think for a second and try to understand what he was talking about. "What do you mean?" She asked.
"I was wrong, I do like how you have grown and become stronger. I like this you, and I never would have met her if you hadn't changed, I'm glad I met you again." He said, his face red and trying hard not to look away from her eyes when he said it. It left Sophia speechless, truly she didn't expect that from Carl.
Back then she had been wounded that the boy would think her old, weak, powerless, and dependent self was somehow better than her current self.
"But…" He continued, a lot more somber now. "Not the Harpy." He finished, and he could tell then that his eyes had moved from hers and onto the mask covering her face. It was a hard pill to swallow.
"I am the Harpy." She told him stubbornly. "She's mor-" Sophia continued, but Carl lifted his hand to stop her.
"Can you take off your mask when we talk about this?" He asked her, but it was more like a demand, one that she wasn't willing to accede to. Granted, not only because she would concede that the Harpy was just the mask and not herself, but because a small part of herself had been hoping to see his little sister again and apologise.
She didn't want her to see her ugly face.
"No." She just answered weakly, unsure if she wanted to explain herself.
Carl took it badly, he looked really disappointed in her and annoyed that she wouldn't open up to him. With a long and sad sigh, he stood up and made for the door.
"You mind if I go see Judith before I leave?" She asked hurriedly before the boy reached the kitchen exit.
Carl stopped and turned around, putting his hands in his pockets. "Would you take off your mask if I say yes?" He asked.
Sophia wanted to get angry at him for that. "That's not fair."
"Why?..." He asked, taking his hands out of his pockets and holding his arms wide in question. "Why is it unfair that I would rather she befriended Sophia instead of the Harpy?"
"You know fucking why! I look like a monster… have you shown her what's under your eye-patch?"
The last question seemed to get him, she knew he wouldn't show her that. If only to keep the little girl clueless about their world for a couple more years. Clueless of what the new world made of kids like them.
Carl's demeanor changed a little after that, he turned around and faced the door again. "I get it, but I'd still prefer she met Sophia"
"The Harpy is me! It's all the same!" She said angrily, the boy walking away. "You are not my mom, Carl! You are supposed to be my friend!"
She wanted to say something else, something more, but she came up with nothing so all she did was watch him walk out the house.
What was left to finish the potion took minutes, so when she finished it was with annoyed relief and without giving it much thought, she walked up the stairs looking for what she thought should be within the biggest bathroom of the house. If she was lucky, it would have a bathtub.
It wasn't one Sophia's most proud fact about herself that she didn't shower or bathed much since she started using magic to clean herself. She pitied the poor no-maj common folk that had to clean themselves in all kinds of awkward ways since the fall of the old world. Sanctuary had a public bath in place which was loosely divided by gender and people cleaned themselves nearby others, but nothing like it used to be, nothing like the long hot showers of the old world or the big bathtubs where one could soak for as long as desired.
So as she sat in a hot water bath with bubbles up to her chin, she knew this had to have been one of her better ideas in a while. The big bathroom was on the first floor and had a wonderful clawfoot bathtub that she enlarged, filled with and kept heated with her wand, which rested neatly with her mask on a towel nearby.
Later that night she had one last job to pull, the declawing of the Kingdom, furtively taking away their means for fighting and in doing so, the preemptive crushing of any rebellious thought that may cross their heads while talking with their friends behind her and Negan's backs.
First I'll head to mom's for dinner, I'll ask her to let me stay with her for the night and sneak out to the Kingdom late at night. She will be a good alibi, considering the King knows her and possibly knows she's my mother. She thought calmly, as she rubbed her arms with a soft loofah.
Fucking Ezekiel, he lied to me about her… I won't forget that, he looked straight at me and mocked me, he must have thought of me like a little girl looking for her momma and thought he could handle me...
A noise outside the bathroom door suddenly took her out of her musings of torturing Ezekiel in front of his men. First a couple of soft little steps and the most delicate scraping of wood over wood.
Sophia carefully took her wand and placed the mask back on her face, the door was ajar and all she did was will the door to swing open with a little wave of her wand and watched with interest from the bathtub as the scene came into view.
She had left her pointy witch hat resting on a desk on the other side of the room the bath was in, and dexterously climbing on the chair with little hands and short legs was Judith, whose eyes were greedily focused on the only source of fresh candy in her world.
Jolly Ranchers… Fuck you, Carl. She thought with a big smile behind her mask.
Sitting up and making sure to be well covered, she didn't waste any time.
"Judith!" She called loudly, the little girl jumped and lost her footing on the chair, falling with the chair and all to the side.
Sophia had to hold a laugh when she caught the face of the girl when she stood up.
"May I know what you were doing sneaking around near my shit?" She asked with her head tilted to the side.
The little girl stood straight and with her chin up, trying to put on a strong front. "Looking for candy."
"You can't get candy out of my hat by yourself."
"Yes I can!" jumped the little girl, offended by the denial.
"No, you can't."
"Yes I can! Yes I can!"
"Nuh-uh! Only I can get candy out of the hat because I'm a witch." Sophia informed her, the girl looked like she wanted to keep arguing so she interrupted her. "But if you bring it to me, I'll give you some."
The new offer gave pause to the girl, her strong front becoming doubtful. She looked at the hat, then at her, and finally glanced away, to where Sophia knew was the door out of the room.
"Are you afraid of me, Judith?" She kept her voice low, teasing the girl. "Do you want to leave?"
The girl's defiance had left her completely now, there was real fear and doubt in the way she bit her lips and kept glancing at the door and back at the floor, while her feet remained rooted on the spot. It suddenly felt too wrong to Sophia.
But then Judith took a deep breath and faced her again, catching her by surprise. "Daddy says you are a bad girl, and you hurt people."
"Your daddy hurts people, you think he is bad?"
"No! My daddy protets everyone!" She screamed, a little bit of that defiance showing up again.
"Then why am I bad?" She wasn't really trying to confuse the girl, or lie to her but this was a surprisingly better conversation than she ever thought she would have with the girl. And she was naked in a bathtub.
"Cause… of what you did to that mister. He was your friend." Judith answered, a very sharp understanding of what she had done that day.
It's like Judith thinks of her group as all friends, and therefore the Saviors are all my friends.
She looked away from Judith and went back to casually rubbing her arms and legs with the loofah. "That man was not a good man either, Judith…" Sophia said. "Maybe I have bad friends, eh?. "
Judith didn't say anything, but a quick glance showed her still rooted in the same spot, listening.
"Your daddy's right, I'm bad. I do bad things to people, even that bad man didn't deserve what I did to him." She thought of what she had done with the man, what people didn't know. Her own living dummy for Legilimency practice, strapped to that contraption until she had no more use for him. "I just do things, you know? I don't think them through, at that time, I was so angry I wanted…"
She stopped herself there and looked back to the girl, looking at her with attentive eyes and her full focus. It was like she was absorbing everything.
"I don't hurt my friends, Judith. We can be friends, even if I'm a bad girl and you are a good girl."
Judith thought about it for a second, shifting in place, her fear and defiance all gone. Then she grabbed the hat from the desk and walked her little legs up to her side on the bathtub.
"Don't tell your brother, though. He doesn't want us to be friends." She smiled and took the hat from the girl, she reached inside and when she took out her hand, it was filled with a full fist of colorful hard candy.
The little girl's face was illuminated with excitement when she saw all the sweets she took from the hat and held her hands eagerly for her. She gave them all to her.
She walked out of Spencer's house feeling refreshed and enjoying the late afternoon chill, the sun was about to set soon and the dark of night would cover the territory, she would have to hurry to her mother's.
People were going back to their houses, looking tired and dusty. None of them dared to glare at her, too tired to worry about anything else but themselves.
Good. That's the idea. Sophia said to herself. By the corner of her sight, she caught Rosita, purposely walking towards the east gate. Her hair and clothes looked a little disheveled, it seemed that she had been hard at work too.
She better work hard after what a pain in the ass she was today. She said to herself, thinking of her earlier interactions.
Sophia nodded in satisfaction, it had been a good first day on the job for her as well. She held her arm up, palm towards the sky, and waited for her broom to hover down to her from where she left it earlier up high.
Then it hit her.
That's it! That's what was bothering me when Carl asked if I had found mom!... How the fuck did Rosita know I found mom so fast!?
The broom fell on her hand and she took it, turning to the east gate and seeing the woman take up another guard shift.
That fucking bitch.
Sophia never took her eyes off the woman as she straddled the broom and hovered above the roofs and the walls, looking down on her, going about unaware of her royal fuck up. She saw Rosita climb up a ladder to a watch stand near the gate and look ahead with her binoculars.
Fucking bitch. Who told her? Just the thought of this woman getting that kind of information so fast was suddenly invasive and infuriating. She could feel her lungs heat and her blood rush with the accelerating beatings of her racing heart.
This fucking bitch. In an instant, Sophia apparated right next to the woman on top of the watch stand. The sudden noise and rush of air, coupled with the new presence right beside her made Rosita step back, only to find there was nothing to step on and she toppled backward.
But Sophia was fast and caught the woman, never taking her eyes from her. She stretched her arm and Rosita held on quick, only just avoiding the hard fall. Sophia though held her where she was, her balance lost, her feet scraping the edge of the lookout stand and trying to hold tightly to the silvery smooth surface of her magical arm.
"How did you know?" She asked furiously.
"What!? Help me up!" Rosita pleaded.
"Who told you I met Carol!?" Sophia demanded, a small step forward had the woman hanging almost entirely from her arm.
"Carol?" A confused male voice asked nearby, but Sophia ignored it.
"Talk!" She ordered. "Did you meet with Daryl? Are you fucking with me Rosita!? Do you want me to dish some consequences here again!? Someone else on your head!?"
"Noo!" Rosita raged, and Sophia knew her threat had managed to poke at her tender side.
"Then start talking! Who told you I met Carol!?"
"It was Rick!" She confessed, her eyes shut in regret.
"How did he know!? Where is Rick!?"
"I don't know! He is the one who contacts us when he is out, we don't contact him, it's for security!
Sophia gritted her teeth in frustration, then with a cutting lash of her wand, she flung the woman over the wall to the outside where she hit the ground violently and tumbled for almost six feet. Then she apparated again at her side and with another few movements of her wand, the still-recovering woman rose into the air and was held above ground, her arms and legs wide open and stretched out by invisible hands.
The woman coughed and spat, her face covered in mud, grass and a small bruise on the cheek.
"Rosita, if Rick is not here by the day of the next full moon, it will be on your head." She threatened. "Are you listening?"
"I can't do anything about that!" She pleaded.
"I don't care what you do, I don't care if you can't do anything. I'm handling Alexandria now and I won't allow any more of this bullshit, no more trips to who knows where, doing who knows what. If Rick is not here in a few days, you better pray to whichever god you pray to, because I don't know what I'll do by then." She finished, completely done with their bullshit and as soon as she was done with the woman, she let her fall on the ground like a sack of rocks.
Her broom was waiting for her near the gate and it only took a gesture of her left hand to have it fly towards her. She climbed up on it and kicked angrily on the ground, the Cleansweep responded immediately climbing straight up into the darkening evening sky, as she looked down on the beaten woman.